“We Have Not Cancelled Badagry Deep Seaport” NPA

By Dapo Olawuni

The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) has declared that the contract for the construction of Badagry Deep Seaport has not been cancelled as erroneously reported.

Managing Director of NPA, Hadiza Bala Usman made the clarification in her office when the leadership of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) paid her a courtesy visit in Marina, Lagos.

She said NPA has provided the necessary approval for Lekki Deep Seaport to commence, and that the construction of the breakwaters has since commenced.

According to her, the contractor for the Lekki port, China Harbour Company has equally acquired major stakes in the project to become a stakeholder.

Hadiza also assured that the auctioning of overtime cargoes at Nigerian ports would now be done “on the spot” by the Nigeria Customs service.

Speaking on the reported cancellation of the Badagry Deep Seaport, she said “Everyone is quick to remember the cancellation, but no one wants to remember that it was not cancelled, the journalist that did the interview corrected it the next day where it was explained that we were reported wrongly”

“I would like to say that the Badagry Deep seaport project has not been cancelled as was reported”

“NPA is mindful of the fact that deep seaports are needed, we provided the necessary approval for Lekki Deep Seaport to commence, they have started the construction of the breakwaters, and finally they are reaching financial closure in September to enable them pool through the specified development within the specified timeline”

“China Harbour has become a shareholder and also the contractor, the GMD of the company is here in Nigeria inspecting the project this week, and he is going to meet with members of NPA on Friday to sort of affirm the commitment of China Harbour and meeting its obligation on Lekki Deep Seaport”

“The Badagry deep seaports have not been cancelled, we are going to proceed with discussions with the proponents, there are highlighted concerns which we have notified the ministry”

The NPA boss rejected the request by NAGAFF to be a part of the review of port concession exercise in Nigeria.

Speaking, she said “There is an issue of review of the concession agreement and the need for NAGAFF to participate in the review, as they have said in several fora, the aspects of the concession agreement are confidential between the Nigerian Ports and the concessionaires, so we cannot reveal these negotiations with stakeholders”

“There are aspects that stakeholders are concerned and these aspects would be discussed with them at the appropriate time. The confidentiality clause does not permit us to disclose certain components of the agreement”

“We have reached quite an advanced stage in discussing with each of the concessionaires on the certain aspects of the agreement, we have the individual section with terminal operators”

Speaking on the review, she said the Federal government has certain obligations and terminal operators also have obligations.

She said there is going to be sanctions on both sides for any party lagging behind.

On the auctioning of overtime cargoes, she said “We have asked Customs to auction the cargoes inside the ports as it were because the Ikorodu warehouse is already full, the last time auction was done was in 2015”

“We have told the Customs that there is need to auction cargoes on the spot because the ports is already congested”